Memphis jury views samurai sword used in 2009 killing

July 18, 2012 - MPD crime scene officer Charles Cathey identifies Samurai sword as it is entered into evidence in the case of defendant Ealrode Davis. (The Commercial Appeal/Nikki Boertman)

Memphis Police crime scene officer Charles Cathey identifies a samurai sword as it is entered into evidence in the case of defendant Ealrode Davis.

The Commercial Appeal

Shortly after he was arrested in 2009 in his North Memphis home, Ealrode Davis said "demons" made him kill his former girlfriend's father with a samurai sword, a police officer testified Wednesday.

Davis, 42, is on trial in Criminal Court for capital murder in the stabbing death of James Donley and for attempted murder in a subsequent fight with another man.

"(Davis) was muttering that there were demons in his body and that's what made him do it," said Memphis police officer Richard Hillyard, who had placed Davis in the back of his squad car. "It almost seemed like he'd been coached to say that to get out of trouble."

Donley was killed in the early-morning hours of Aug. 1, 2009, at 2296 Devoy in North Memphis, where Davis and Donley's daughter lived with her two young children.

Prosecutors say Davis, who worked in housekeeping at a Tunica casino, had been asked to move out and that another boyfriend, Markius Howard, was going to be moving in.

Defense attorneys say Donley, 47, and Howard were the aggressors and that Davis acted in self-defense.

Jurors in a capital murder trial got their first look Wednesday at the long, shiny samurai sword that still had blood stains on the 26-inch blade.

Donley, who had just arrived from his home in Winona, Miss., was stabbed through the abdomen and slashed across the throat. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. The sword was a family heirloom given to him by his father, who obtained it during his military service.

Howard, who said he is a former member of the Gangster Disciples, said he was asleep at the house when Davis came at him with the sword and said, "Are you ready to die?"

In the fight, Davis suffered facial cuts and a broken orbital bone near his left eye.